Comment by Emilia Milcheva:
When a decoy drone fell in Bulgaria, Prime Minister Rumen Radev convened the Security Council, but when a powerful GPS jammer from a private complex near Sofia was “neutralized”, his subordinate DANS released only one sentence on Friday evening.
The smokescreen for the drone turned out to be bigger than the device itself. The authorities have not said for two weeks whether the drone that fell near Kardam carried an explosive, but they did not spare the political drama. And about a device that suppresses GPS signal frequencies on the territory of Sofia, including Sofia Airport, planes flying over Sofia and television towers, the authorities simply silenced the information.
They did not officially name the owner of the private complex in Dragalevtsi. No one has been detained and no pre-trial proceedings have been reported. There is no explanation for how expensive military equipment ended up in a property guarded as part of the national infrastructure.
Their silence cannot hide the parallel state of the untouchables, but only shows their weakness. It seems that the only thing they can do is control the information. But still, some data became known - probably suggested by the authorities themselves.
Friday evening - questions remained unanswered
The announcement about the powerful jammer was made on Friday, August 21, shortly before 7 p.m. - at the end of the working week, when the editorial offices were already switching to on-duty mode. The television stations managed to report that a powerful GPS jammer had been operating over Sofia, but not who had turned it on, who and what it was protecting, and how a private complex had acquired such equipment. There is no photo of the device, no technical specifications, or convincing data on how long it had been operating.
That is, the sensation was limited to the headline and the reassuring comment by Transport Minister Georgi Peev that although it had affected GPS signals, it had not endangered flight safety. Just an hour before the news about the jammer, Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev announced that Bulgaria was expanding anti-drone protection along the borders. And shortly after, it turned out that someone had already deployed their own private anti-drone defense in Dragalevtsi. It was around this version that the experts united.
Former deputy rector of the Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Milen Ivanov commented on NOVA that the device was most likely supposed to protect people in the complex from surveillance or drone attacks. It interrupts satellite navigation, so the drone loses the ability to be precisely guided. On the air of the same television, the chairman of the Association of the Bulgarian Aviation Industry Todor Ivandzhikov admitted that it was a military-grade device, the price of which could reach a six-figure sum in euros. According to Ivanov, such systems are subject to export control.
Who is the person who fears for his life, hides his whereabouts and has the opportunity to buy and import such a system into Bulgaria?
Taki, Ami, Pepi the Euro...
The silencer is located in the strictly guarded complex with the Greek restaurant “Kelari“. On the evening of August 21, BNT reported, based on unofficial information, that the establishment is associated with Hristoforos Amanatidis-Taki and Razmig Chakaryan-Ami. The searches found secret corridors and a tunnel between the restaurant and a house in the complex.
This is also the place where former investigator Petyo Petrov-Pepi Evroto disappeared during the failed attempt of the GDBOP to detain him in 2023. Evroto also had a restaurant - “Osemte dvujeta”, from where he traded in justice and accumulated compromising material. The managers of “Kelari” denied that a silencer had been found in their place and continued to welcome their customers, while an operation by the National Security Agency, the Ministry of Interior and the Communications Regulation Commission was underway outside.
In 2009, Taki was charged in absentia as the head of a criminal group for drug distribution and was declared an international wanted man. The authorities in Dubai refused to extradite him, and in 2014 the prosecutor's office dropped the charges and the warrant for his arrest was dropped. Taki was not convicted in this case. Taki and his close associate Ami are linked to the private monopoly on phytosanitary control at the border near Kapitan Andreevo, but also to construction, road orders and garbage collection in Sofia. The current Minister of Agriculture, Plamen Abrovski, defended his positions in Kapitan Andreevo.
Because of the silencer, the inspections also reached properties near Kapitan Andreevo, associated with the same owner, from where equipment, radios, weapons and recordings were seized. Some of the equipment was taken out and thrown into the fields when the uniformed officers appeared.
A tool for both criminals and the authorities
In Serbia, electronic warfare is at the service of other untouchables - the regime of Aleksandar Vučić. A BIRN investigation from July 2026 found more than 25 cases of GPS jamming and false coordinates. Some of them coincided with large anti-government protests. On May 23, a dozen drones filming the demonstration on Slavija Square were forced to land after receiving a false signal that they were at Nikola Tesla Airport. During the protests on March 15, 2025, pilots of several civilian aircraft also reported disturbances. BIRN cites sources according to which the Serbian BIA service subsequently coordinated its jamming with air traffic control.
In both Serbia and Bulgaria, the security of people in power - whether behind the scenes or on the stage of power - is placed above the safety of everyone else. In other countries, criminals have been caught with lower-frequency jammers used to block car locks.
Europol also regularly finds jammers in operations against organized crime groups - to evade police surveillance, smuggling and illegal production. For example, GPS jammers and detectors were seized during the break-in of a cigarette factory in Latvia.
Why are the authorities jamming information?
However, the Bulgarian case is more worrying than the usual criminal use of a jammer. Here, a device with a possible military purpose was not found in the trunk of a thief or in an illegal factory, but in a fortified private compound associated with some of the most influential figures in the underworld. It was not guarding a car or a shipment, but a territory.
Bulgaria has long had its private enclaves of power - the palaces in Boyana, the residence in Rosenets, the “Berlin“ hotel. Martin Notary's private club for magistrates was even guarded by police patrols. Places with barriers, security and its own access regime, in front of which the state stops or enters only when it is allowed. The complex in Dragalevtsi adds to this architecture secret corridors, a tunnel and an electronic dome against drones.
In Serbia, the authorities are jamming the GPS signals used by drones over the protests. In Bulgaria, a private security system is jamming the GPS navigation of planes over the capital, and the official authorities are silencing the most essential information. In fact, now is the time for Radev to order a new meeting of the Security Council - or for President Yotova to convene the National Security Advisory Council.
But first they will have to say Taki's name.